Update

Well it seems Edie's meds have finally kicked in. She woke twice last night, but was easy to put back down both times and slept all night in her crib for the first time in 4 nights. While I like a good snuggle, sleeping with Edie sprawled all over me was horrible. Even when she *did* sleep, I couldn't. She was only able to hack the day for an hour and a half this morning before falling asleep for her morning nap. She must be making up for lost sleep over the long weekend.

Roller Coaster

Hi there. Sorry for the lack of coverage lately, but we've been riding a bit of a roller coaster this week. Edie has her first ear infection and one minute she's the happiest camper and the next she's a bit of a clingy, weepy mess. The mess part seems to mostly occur at night. When we like to sleep. So, yeah. We've been rocking the hourly wake ups since Friday and capped it off last night with an epic scream fest that lasted from 10:20 until 12:45am and included such highlights as a midnight run to the pharmacy, pacing the dark street with Edie in the Ergo while wearing my pajamas and slippers, administering ear drops, and our first middle of the night call to the pediatrician. I can't stress enough how fun it was.

I called it a roller coaster because she wakes up each morning pleased as punch and spends most of the day running laps and happily terrorizing the cat. That, and despite Edie's earache, we (all 3) managed to have a really wonderful time on Whidbey Island for our friends' wedding on Sunday night. I'm so thankful for that reprieve. And then we decided not to risk another hotel night of crying and Tylenol and drove home at 10pm (to cry and give Tylenol in our own bed). Up and down the roller coaster goes....

It's currently 10:22pm and I'm hesitant to go to bed for fear of needing to wake in 10 minutes. Please take a moment to wish with me that the antibiotics we started on Sunday have finally kicked in.

Dear Edie,

Happy Birthday Edie Bee! Today you turned one year old. We celebrated your big day yesterday with a big BBQ potluck in the back yard. Family and friends all came over after your afternoon nap and you played with friends, ran circles around the yard, ate hot dog and baked beans, then happily smeared cake (and a lot of frosting) all over your party dress.

It would appear that cake is the one food you have perhaps been waiting all your life for. You were hesitant and curious at the start, but after tasting it, attempted to first plant your entire face into the cake with your mouth gaping open, and second, pick up the entire cake to eat it like a hamburger.

The first attempt failed due to your inability to bend forward far enough in your high chair (and I think everyone's laughter startled you out of your goal) and the second attempt failed after you were distracted by the sticky frosting. Instead you contented yourself with clapping your gooey hands together and then licking the frosting off. You weren't thrilled when I decided you'd eaten enough of your individual cake and took it away but made do with eating all the crumbs left on your try (and feeding them to Aunt Kathleen and baby Reid).

We had your one year check up today and discovered that you weigh 20 pounds and are measuring 29 and a half inches long. This means your growth has jumped down a curve and it would appear that you are perhaps my daughter after all. I think the fact that you essentially run everywhere and eat very little has had an impact on you slimming down. I'm assuming it's just your Bruton genes causing the height shift. All in all you were pronounced healthy as a horse, clearly not allergic to anything you've eaten thus far (including strawberries and peanut butter) and a prediction for bruises and skinned knees was made for the next 2-4 years.
Now that most of your motor skills have caught up with your desire to be a free wheeling toddler, the bulk of the changes this last month have been smaller, developmental shifts. You are starting to use toys "correctly" these days. You now focus to put the rings on your stacking toy rather than just chewing on them, you play with your stuffed animals - making them move around like people and giving them sloppy, open mouthed kisses,

you can throw your balls rather than just carry them around (although you still do a fair amount of this as well),
and you frequently sit quietly for long stretches of time turning the pages of your books as if reading them.
You also hold the TV remote and press buttons while aiming it at the TV, which really surprised me because I can count on one hand the number of times you've been allowed to watch TV and see the purpose of the remote.

You love Peekaboo and now initiate a game without encouragement. You seem to be grasping the concept of play and goofing off.
The other night you emerged from your closet with a dirty dress from the clothes hamper on your head and looked at me with barely concealed mirth as if to say, "Check out this dirty dress on my head - aren't I hilarious?" When I feigned shock at this, you burst into giggles, so pleased with yourself for having done something funny. You also have started to follow directions (unless the direction is to stop what you are doing, then it's completely ignored). For example if I ask you to find a book and bring it to me, you will immediately run to the books and pick out your favorite of the day and hand it to me while trying to climb on my lap. Of course the time you opened your diaper hamper and dangled a piece of cereal over it while looking directly at me, you didn't "Stop" or "Bring me the cereal" as directed, but rather kept dangling the cereal and then very intentionally dropped it into the diaper pail while maintaining eye contact with me. Oh the power struggles the two of us are going to have...
You are SO close to saying "cat", pointing specifically at Maurice every time you see him and saying, "TAT!". You more or less say "that" and "this" but the meaning of these words to you (and me) seems a bit unclear - basically everything is "dis" or "zat". While you aren't referring directly to your Dad and I by name, you do know who Mama and Dada are. For example if Dad says, "Bring your ball to Mama", you will take the ball to wherever I am in the house. You've also become fascinated with putting things inside other things. Your nesting blocks are actually being nested and Dad keeps finding our door stops (large rocks from Orcas) inside his shoes.

Eating continues to be a roller coaster, but the last week has seen some interesting progress. By trying to transition you from the bottle to a sippy cup, we've dramatically reduced the number of bottles you are drinking and thereby increased your interest in food. Apparently I was pushing too much formula and milk down your throat to allow you any actual hunger! The sippy cup is still a struggle, but just today you took two full bottles from it so perhaps success is right around the corner. You're showing interest in using your baby fork as well. I help you spear foods with it and then you happily eat the food off the fork. The other day I saw you trying to push the fork into a piece of peach on your tray, mimicking the way I do it.

You definitely gravitate toward danger - whether you're unraveling the entire toilet paper roll (we now have to keep the TP on top of the toilet), reaching for cords, running for the basement stairs in the back yard, or bee-lining it for the back door when Dad opens it to let the cat out. Which brings me to Maurice... the two of you seem to be developing a hesitant friendship. You've pet him a few times very gently and he's allowed it. Your enthusiasm for chasing him worries me, but he seems to be growing in tolerance.

You remain extremely social and love new people and children. You see your playgroup pals every week and have other friends that you see regularly, not to mention the kids at the gym daycare.
You also have many adoring adults that have generously volunteered to babysit for you these last few months. You typically spend all the time with your babysitters running laps around the house showing them all your toys and books with great enthusiasm, rarely even noticing that your Dad and I have been gone. You also had your second overnight trip with Grandma and Grandpa B this month.

I often hear moms exclaim, "I can't believe it's been a whole year!" But truthfully, I can. I heard a newborn screaming in public the other day and I'd entirely forgotten that sound, it had been so long since I'd heard it. You've taken this year to go from a little blob of mostly rage
to the most charming and hilarious KID.

I have many nostalgic feelings about this year, but mostly I'm just thrilled about who you are turning into. Any sadness I feel over you growing up is eclipsed by my excitement for the things to come. Talking! Family vacations! Ripping Christmas presents open with the kind of glee only 3 year olds experience, school, slamming doors in my face and yelling, "You don't know anything about me!" (cringe), dating, love, grandchildren?.... It's all still ahead of us.

Love you,
Mom

Time

One year ago, this is what I looked like:
A little less than two years ago, I was gallivanting through Guatemala:
I can't help but look at that top picture and feel intense relief over the fact that I am not pregnant right now. Oh how I hated being 9 months pregnant. Remember how badly my hip hurt? How I could barely walk? That sucked. And while it can accurately be said that I have a tendency to wallow in misery when put in a miserable situation, I think it only fair to also point out that when removed from the miserable situation I am immensely grateful. I frequently think to myself now that I am SO thankful to walk without pain, to have a stride that does not resemble a limping elephant, and to see a familiar number on the scale again.

That said, I've been feeling very reminiscent about our Central America trip lately. I think back with such fondness to our adventures. I have these vivid memories of riding the speeding water taxis after dark in Belize, the crazy wind taking some edge off the humidity and heat. The boat would run at top speed through the shallow water with no lights on - it felt like we were catapulting through the sky and I loved it. I knew we were going to start trying for a baby when we got home so I enjoyed everything the way you do when you know it might be the last time you do something. I knew things would change in the following year but I had no idea how quickly. Within a month or two of our return, Wamu had crashed, leaving Jeff's employment a big question mark, our friends that we'd just had such a wonderful trip with were divorcing, and I was pregnant. So when we remember that trip I think we both now see it as an end of an era.

I just spent like 20 minutes looking at our trip pictures from 2 years ago and craving a tropical vacation like nobody's business. I keep thinking about using our airline miles and taking a trip with (or without) Edie somewhere exotic. Or maybe just Hawaii. Or even California might do. Disneyland? Basically I've got the itch.

If you enlarge the photo, I think you can see me sitting on the left side of the dock - waiting for our water taxi.

1 Year check up

Cinderella helping with the cleaning.

Edie's birthday is just around the corner and her one year check up is next week. Since food has been an epic battle for us from the time we introduced solids at 6 months, this is the point I'm most interested in discussing with the doctor. How will she possibly get enough to eat with the one bite here - one bite there attitude she has right now? I've done a crap job of getting the bottle out of the picture for this reason, but this birthday has sort of rushed up on me. Since Edie hates most foods, the bottle has been my go-to in times of frustration. After pushing like 20 different foods at lunch, for example, I will finally resort to the bottle because I keep thinking, "She needs her calories somehow, right?"

Her bottles are now about 1/3 whole milk and I plan to keep upping that ratio until we're working with all whole milk in a week or two, but the sippy cup part seems to have taken a step backwards. I think Edie got so used to drinking only water from her sippy cup, that now when she takes a drink and finds milk she gets confused and spits it out. Then she presses the sippy cup spout into the table or ground until it leaks the milk all over and she can draw pictures in the milk with her fingers. So. Frustrating.

I don't know... I talked to my Mom tonight while trying to convince Edie that bread and cheese is delicious (no dice) and expressed my frustration. I was saying that maybe I just need to go hard-core about this and only offer her the sippy cup from now on. No matter how pissed she gets. My Mom even suggested we could formally say goodbye to the bottles with Edie. I figure it's like Crying It Out but for food. Am I off base? I'm not suggesting cramming food down her throat (she wouldn't let me if I tried), I'm just saying that I will offer her plenty of food when she is hungry, as well as the same amount of milk she's used to, just in sippy cup form. I'm pretty sure it's going to be ugly, but maybe I'm ready for it.

Also? I was complaining to Jeff about the food war when he got home tonight and he took it as his personal goal to get Edie to eat something for dinner. He somehow got her to (willingly) eat: salami, plain Greek yogurt, a bite of a cherry tomato, grapes, strawberries and.... wait for it.... are you ready? .... PEANUT BUTTER. So yeah. I guess we'll find out tonight if Edie's allergic to peanuts. Seriously though, is that not the grossest combination of foods ever? When I turned around and saw Edie sucking on Jeff's finger I quietly asked (already guessing the answer), "What is she eating?" When he told me peanut butter I shrieked. But then, I don't know. It was too late to take it back, so I guess we'll just find out. The good news is that she liked it. Hopefully there IS no bad news.

Bridal shower for Jessie

Now that my brother's wedding is over, our finale of the wedding season will be Jessie and Clay's wedding on September 5th. Jessie reading a book she bought Edie:

A few photos from the bridal shower I threw for Jessie a few weeks back. Jessie and Clay were engaged in Thailand so I used that as a quasi-theme. Pictures of them hang from the chandelier. I used bamboo from my backyard with some lilies for flowers:
I'm so good at taking pictures before the guests arrive, but never remember to take any good ones of the actual guests (or the food once it's all displayed). I'm really mad at myself for not getting a nice shot of Jessie at the party.

Parasols that were intended for the backyard (it's raining), peeking into the kitchen where more lanterns (also intended for the backyard) hang over the food.

We had chicken satays with peanut sauce, fresh rolls, lemongrass chicken spring rolls, veggie potstickers, tiny to-go boxes of pad thai with tofu, and tropical fruit. Very little of this is actually pictured because I got too distracted once guests arrived and the party swung into full gear. I also completely forgot to photograph the beautiful chocolate and blueberry cake that Jessie's friend made.

I bought two of these orchids and used them as prizes for the one trivia game we played.
My only photo of the party in full swing. What isn't obvious from these pictures is the fact that Jessie's lovely mother spent almost the entire party holding Edie back from clearing the coffee table of all those champagne glasses (did I mention we had passion fruit juice mimosas? And Thai iced tea?). Edie loves danger like a fat kid loves cake.

Scott and Emily

My brother Scott married Emily last night. The photo is from their engagement in Hawaii, I'll have wedding photos up soon. It was such a beautiful night with clouds on every horizon but blue sky overhead and a pink sunset. The venue was perfect, the food tasty and if my stomach hadn't been recovering from a touch of the flu from the day before I'm sure I could attest to the fact that the wine was delicious. Dancing was still going strong when we finally took our pajama clad Edie home (she fell asleep before we'd even left the driveway). And now we officially have a new member of our family and Edie has an Auntie Em. Congrats guys - have fun in Ireland!